“Last night in the middle of the night, I was woken up by an emergency request to provide medical treatment for a young woman who the Israeli Search and Rescue team managed to pull out of the rubble from a collapsed building in Kahrmanmaras in Turkey,” Hadassah Medical Center pediatrician Dr. Itai Basel reported on Wednesday.
“The search teams located her alive and buried inside the building earlier in the day and spent 12 hours trying to get her out. As they were nearing the final steps of the rescue, they called me and another United Hatzalah volunteer EMT, Yossi Amar, to go meet the team.
“The woman was buried in the rubble for two days without access to food or water. She was very weak. The IDF Homefront Command Search and Rescue Unit had been conducting the effort to evacuate her while providing her with whatever medical care they could. They were making every effort to extricate her in a way that would allow her to survive the attempt while taking into account the injuries she had already suffered during the collapse and the exposure to the severe elements that followed.
“As the woman was finally freed from the rubble, we immediately began treating her while she was being transported to the hospital. The trip to the hospital was not short – we had to get to a facility with enough supplies and services to care for her, and those were outside the immediate disaster area.
“Our job was to make sure she stayed alive after having suffered so much. We managed to stabilize her condition and when we arrived at the hospital, we immediately transferred her to the trauma care center. I am proud to have been part of this effort and to help this woman. She is one of many who need our help, but each is an entire world.”
